In your article titled, "S preadi n g E vi l t h e I n di rect W a y", the main concern you raise is

that of extra marital relations resulting as a consequence of movies or dramas. The point I
wish to raise is that before we address this issue today, let us step back and look at the
societal fabric.

In the entertainment genre one would have poetry, novels, movies, music, paintings,
sculptures apart from other stuff.

1) Let us forget movies for some time and look at the other forms of entertainment. The
poetry of Ghalib and many other poets is infested with the mention of wine, fleeting loves,
and if I dare proclaim, some of the poetry can be categorized as quite X-rated. In this category
not even the likes of Maulana Rumi resist themselves;

Look at Afzal Iqbal's book on Rumi (in the LUMS library), and on the last chapters, you would
find mention of sodomy and bestiality;

Now consider paintings and sculptures, the nudes of Mrs. Hashmi and the other painters;

Novels and women digests, full of love stories that many Pakistani women gorge on;

Music on love themes, songs, etc. The very few are on patriotism are played only around the
14th of August. All our Pakistani bands have songs mainly on love.

Recapitulating, poetry, music, novels, paintings et al (mind you, I have not, as yet, included
movies) are all about love, man-woman relations, etc. Given all this, tell me whether this
promotes promiscuity and leads one to extra marital affairs or not.

If yes, then our society should have been full of fornication crimes. I am not aware of the
statistics, but I do not think that, as a consequence of all these things which have been there
for quite some time now, our society has become infested with fornicators.

Dramas and movies are just another addition to the above. They do not change anything.

Now, you might argue that opposing forces have been at work i.e. the tablighi jamaat,
Islamization, etc. And in that case, I would respond with the following.

2) Marquis De Sade, as I learnt form a movie, was the father of Sadism. He used to write X-
rated stuff. His washerwoman used to read all of them, but the abbot under whose care he
was, was always critical of him. Eventually, however, the washerwoman died a virgin while
the abbot spent his time fantasizing and romancing!

So you see, even in a mud pool could grow a lotus e.g.: Muhammad Asad; and even in a
mosque could child molesting be done, as has happened in mosques in Pakistan.

For Muhammad Asad, the wine was not strong enough to sway him and for 'that' maulvi, the
Qu'ran was not strong enough to sway him from molesting.

I believe that belief is based soundly on some other thing rather than on rituals. Rituals do
not stop you from backbiting, ogling et al.
The examples of fornication you provided were of those who never knew whether it was
forbidden or not. Their parents would never have taught them against it, as I am sure of it.

3) I know from my personal experience - my Chinese roommate has gone for hanky panky
on several nights but that did not compel me to go out and do the same. I must have watched
hundreds of movies but that has never made me go out for gratification.

Now, I do not offer my prayers 5 times a day, even the four that I do offer are, occasionally,
just to get the fardh done. I do not think that it was all these prayers that have stopped me
from fornication, to date, but, in fact, I have had my strength from a very deep understanding
and appreciation of the Islamic code of conduct imbued in me by my father and mother.

Some of my friends have even watched all that X-rated stuff and yet, they remain, in
agreement, against committing what they believe is quite heinous.

After seeing all this, I can only conclude that it is something else that protects one from extra-
marital relations, and it is one's upbringing and not rituals.

Rituals only confirm what already lies within our hearts.

4) I guess I have digressed, so coming back to movies. The only thing I want to say is that
one can watch a hundred movies and remain a virgin or see no movie and molest children in
mosques.

5) Finally, I do not perceive a more religious society following a ban on movies since the world
is fast becoming a global village. I hope you remember Iran. See what has happened there.
Khomeini had his intentions but he tightened the spring so tight that it bounced.

In the end, a quote from Gautama Siddharta Buddha:

'If you tie the string too tight it will break'.

Answer:
Whatever you have mentioned is well taken, but I would want to mention the following points
for your consideration:

1) It is not just fornication that is prohibited in Islam, even coming near it as well as
participating in what constitutes 'fahhashi' (obscenity), are also strongly condemned. The real
evil is the filth that is associated with obscenity that expresses itself in many forms: evil
thoughts, evil talks, evil views, and obscene acts. Fornication and sodomy are the ultimate
acts of obscenity, but most certainly, not the only ones. The problem with all such acts is that
they corrupt your soul and deprive it of its original purity. When you lose the natural purity
of your soul, you are unable to remember God Almighty the way He deserves to be
remembered. That explains why some people say that even though they pray, they don't get
anything out of their prayers. The reason being that while prayer has an outer form, its real
essence lies in the kind of appreciation of the Almighty you are able to achieve while getting
involved in the process. That appreciation is done by your heart that, if it gets degenerated
by sin (obscenity being one of them), refuses to provide you with the facility to properly
remember God.
2) The analogy of traffic rules helps me a lot in understanding some of the finer issues in
man-woman relations. You are quite right in observing that many individuals never get
indulged in fornication despite watching dirty movies and remaining in a filthy environment.
However, that, in itself, is not a good enough reason to conclude that a filthy environment
does not contribute to adultery and therefore, should be acceptable to us; quite as much as
it would be wrong to conclude that since some expert drivers are able to control their vehicles
even while driving at speeds far beyond the legally allowed limits, they, as well as all others,
should be allowed to indulge in over speeding. Rules of a society are decided on the basis of
the abilities of an average individual. Indeed, individuals do have different temperaments,
and therefore, you are bound to come across exceptions to most rules concerning humans.

I can also understand that an individual who is regular in his prayers is found involved in
things that are obscene. However, that is because the chap is not considering his prayers
seriously or else his prayers would, at least, admonish him on what he is doing. Another
person may be staying away from obscenity simply because of his different personality. Such
stray examples, however, do not prove anything except the fact that when it comes to
humans, there could always be exceptions to the rule.

3) The problem with stuff like movies is that it is able to slow poison the society. Since the
themes of most of the 'decent' movies is good, even decent people get involved in the process
of experiencing objectionable stuff without even realising it. The end result is that the moral
fabric of the society gradually begins to fall apart. I am a witness to the phenomenon of moral
degeneration in our society with regard to man-woman relations in the last three decades.
The Satanic trick in this regard is to mix good with evil. The result of this strategy is that
when an evil aspect of the package is pointed out, the good part of it is highlighted by the
defenders of the idea and thus, evil manages to survive and to thrive.

Although, on the face of things, slow poisoning does not appear to be desperately wrong, the
net effect in the long run is a huge benefit to the evil ways. The defence mechanism of the
society is gradually eaten away.

To give you an example, in our childhood days, it was normally very difficult for a young boy
to talk to a young girl. It is still the case with many youngsters today. But because of the
growing popularity of more openness, that natural hesitation -- that God-designed 'first line
of defence' -- has been demolished. As a consequence, flirtation is commonplace in our
society. Now, all those who flirt don't end up doing zina, but some of them most certainly do.
Had these opportunities not been available, the frequency of such crimes would have been
much lower.

4) The works of Ghalib and other poets and prose writers also illustrate essentially, the same
process of slow poisoning. I cannot imagine how stuff like Ghalib's poetry or Manto's fiction
could be acknowledged as Islamically acceptable. I hope you will not object to my claim by
stating that Ghalib has always been a popular poet amongst Muslims of the sub-continent.
We are talking about what is desirable in Islam and not what Muslims have been desiring.
The damage caused by Ghalib and his likes to the moral fabric of our society is immeasurably
huge. Since his poetry is otherwise a classic of Urdu literature, it has caused its damage in an
indirect way, influencing many more people than what cheap obscenity would have done.
Likewise is the case with all other works of fine arts that promote obscenity.

5) There are at least two important differences between poetry and dramas/movies, which
make the latter even more damaging. While poetry, by its nature, is less accessible to the
people, given the effort it takes to read and appreciate it - even though its impact on the
society in the long run is profound - it is relatively limited in the short-run. Movies and dramas,
on the contrary, by their very nature are available to a larger audience and since the only
effort required to get involved in them is to passively receive them, the number it is able to
influence is considerably large, and the time it takes in inflicting its damage is much less.

The other, more important difference in the two forms of expression lies in the fact that
poetry, literature and the rest are just ideas - pure or filthy - so long as they are exppressed
in the print media; on the other hand, when fiction starts getting translated into dramas and
films, you are moving into the real world. There, you witness two men and women engaged
in transforming the ideas of the scriptwriters into a real audio-visual experience. That is what
makes it more effective; and that is what makes it more objectionable.

When you say, in a novel, that 'A' fell in love with 'B', you are just mentioning a thought.
When you are showing 'A' as a real, young man who is romancing a young lady 'B', as a
Muslim, you have to ask yourself whether the two are allowed to do so, and whether you
would allow your sister to do so. If the answer to these Questions is "no", then neither can
you yourself can act like 'A' nor are you allowed to see 'A' involved in his romantic adventurism
with 'B'. This is so because the least part of the faith, we have been told by our prophet,
alihissalaam, requires us to condemn crime at least in our hearts. If you are enjoying a
drama/film, you cannot possibly condemn it for being partly un-Islamic. I am sure you would
agree that there could be no threat more serious than the one that targets your faith. That is
what alarms me the most. I just want to know exactly what do you do when such scenes
appear in films you watch. Probably, you ignore them. How can you remain neutral to an un-
Islamic act? They are a part of the plot of the enitre film: a woman playing the role of a wife
of a perfectly stranger (na-mahram) man. If one were to watch movies and dramas, one
should stop reading, at least, surah Nur and surah Ahzab, because some parts of these two
surahs are not important to people involved in the process of entertaining themselves with
movies and dramas. Maybe, a workable idea is to not to go deep into their meanings and just
go through their recitation. That is exactly what many Muslims are doing today.